“You promised you’d come,” I said. Background conversations and celebratory sounds seemed to belong to another universe.
“Your sister needs us tonight,” she replied. “We’ll visit tomorrow.”
I looked at Rosie in my arms. “Mom, I just gave birth to my daughter. She’s dead.”
After a pause, she answered, “I know, sweetheart, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.”
Before we left, a nurse presented us with a little white remembrance box containing Rosie’s footprints, hospital bracelet, and the blanket she’d worn. I pressed it to my chest while leaving, unable to escape the realization that I’d entered the hospital carrying my daughter inside me and was departing with only objects she’d touched.
We buried Rosie. Those days are almost impossible to describe. Ordinary life still demanded decisions while everything meaningful to me had stopped. The keepsake box was precious, but it wasn’t the daughter we’d waited so long to bring home. Few people explain the disorientation of passing a nursery whose door you can no longer bear to open.
